First off, don't ask. Seriously, just trust us on this one; the explanation behind our most recent two weeks AWOL is a tale far too convoluted to cram into our meager time slot, and would still be too long to relate even if the network were to grant us rollover minutes for unused airtime. The super-short version is that we're so overcommitted right now that, in the next edition of Webster's, next to the entry for "overextended" will be a picture of the AtAT staff playing dodgeball while juggling an assortment of cordless power tools and an asthmatic goat. Suffice it to say that the past fortnight has been a long, strange trip (or, relativistically from our perspective, a short strange one), and always remember: if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, under no circumstances should you attempt to elect a new Pope while simultaneously running the Boston Marathon. Bad Things™ will (and did) ensue. Don't try this at home, kids.

As it turns out, though, fortune must be smiling upon us, because we're out of the Burn Ward just in time to spout our patented inconsequential drivel about the new Power Macs that Apple just horked up. Not that there's much to say, mind you, since, as Think Secret had previously reported, the new models aren't exactly going to be sending many Mac fans scrambling for their heart pills. AppleInsider concurs: single core processors, no PCI-X 2.0 or PCI Express expansion slots, no Blu-Ray DVD support, no built-in Slurpee machine... just a modest across-the-board clock bump that'll bring the high end to 2.7 GHz. Which is particularly galling when you realize that WWDC is just around the corner, meaning that a full year after the deadline by which Steve said we'd all be tooling along at 3.0 GHz, we'll still be 10 percent short of that goal.

No, the specs of the new Power Macs aren't exactly dripping with drama, but the way in which they were made public sort of is. See, by now you may well have zipped off to Apple's Power Mac page to scope out all the details, only to find the same ol' same ol' topping out at dual 2.5 GHz, at which point you simply assumed that we're still tripping on the morphine. And well we may be, because everything we see is furry and we keep hearing Tom Waits singing the Partridge Family's greatest hits, but regardless, faithful viewer yoshiki_of_x tipped us off to the fact that Amazon.com just added a page for the dual 2.7 GHz model, complete with 512 MB of RAM, a 250 GB hard drive, a 16x dual-layer SuperDrive, and Tiger preloaded; for a while Amazon was even taking preorders for it, but now the page simply states that "this item is currently not available." (Digging around a bit uncovered listings for the dual 2.0 GHz and dual 2.3 GHz models, too.) Meanwhile, AppleInsider claims that as of Monday the new Power Macs were definitely en route to Apple's retail stores for availability this Wednesday, and now has photos to prove it (if a photo of something blocky on a pallet wrapped in opaque plastic so as to obscure any hint of what might be inside meets your personal definition of "proof").

So there's no official word from Apple as of yet, but AI expects an announcement by tomorrow. We figure it'll be suitably low-key when it comes-- a press release at most, since there's nothing particularly ground-breaking about the new Power Macs to make the world gasp in awestruck reverie. And hopefully we'll actually be here to say something when the announcement comes, but we should warn you that two or three episodes a week in between the occasional total vanishing-off-the-face-of-the-planet hiatus will probably continue to be the norm for a while until our lives regain some semblance of sanity (or someone figures out how to cram an extra eight or ten hours into each of our days). But hey, it sure beats that time we slipped into an alternative dimension for eleven weeks straight, right?

While we're on the topic of imminent product releases, we all know that Tiger's out this Friday-- and given that it represents a far larger leap over its predecessor than the new Power Macs will apparently be over theirs (why, you can even video iChat with multiple people simultaneously, provided you have a few hundred Xserves Infinibanded together for the necessary horsepower!), there's a lot more anticipation buzzing around out there for Apple's Next Big Cat™ than for its Next Big Cheese Grater™. So, how can we put this delicately? See, we've got the utmost faith in the moral scruples of AtAT's entire viewing audience; while we know you're not above tilting a Pepsi bottle or two, we're sure none of you would ever, say, rob an Apple retail store at gunpoint while wearing a Steve Ballmer mask and make off with a G5 or two after shooting up the Genius Bar. But it's a lot easier to "acquire" unlicensed software; all you need is a fast 'net connection and a copy of BitTorrent. (Firearms larger than a 9-mil are rarely necessary.)

What we're getting at, of course, is that copies of Tiger are floating around out there on the peer-to-peer networks, and since it's so ridiculously easy to download one, we fear that some of you may be willing to toast your karma a few shades darker than its usual golden-brown in order to get Tiger a few days earlier, and free, to boot. Whether or not you'll actually head down that road is, of course, entirely your own decision to make, but we'd be remiss not to mention the potential practical consequences that such an act might incur. In a word: lawyers. Not to alarm you unnecessarily or anything, but if you BitTorrent yourself a copy of Tiger, there's no reason to believe that Apple isn't connecting to the swarm and logging IP addresses of every peer from which it receives packets. BitTorrent's unique architecture generally means that for as long as you're downloading something, other people are also downloading it from you. If one of those people is an Apple lawyer digging for lawsuit bait, you might theoretically find yourself wriggling on the hook one day.

You probably know that Apple hasn't really gone in for suing end-users yet-- but that doesn't mean that its lawyers won't get bored someday. Don't forget, the company recently filed suit against three developers who seeded prerelease versions of Tiger to the BitTorrent crowd, one of whom has already settled by apologizing and forking over an undisclosed wad of cash. That's really only a step away from going after the downloaders themselves, since, like we said, in BitTorrent, downloaders are also uploaders. And according to Mac User Talk, Apple's lawyers did recently contact the folks running The Pirate Bay informing them that their site was listing Tiger torrents and telling them to knock it off. Considering that The Pirate Bay more or less told Apple to dress like a mackerel and wave coyly at a bunch of starving bears, we can't imagine that Apple's legal team holds much love for anyone involved with the BitTorrent community.

Sure, net-savvy downloaders can certainly find other ways of grabbing Tiger without basically handing Apple their IP addresses on a platter; all we're saying is that the blithe "BitTorrent = Free Stuff" users might do well to get at least a little paranoid before they fire up their clients and make God cry. And just to make this as transparently self-serving as possible, let's just squeeze in one last in-scene pimping: if you want Tiger, you're not in any particular hurry to get it, you don't qualify for the education price, money's an issue but you still want to keep your soul, and you enjoy getting rebate checks in the mail long after you forget that you ever applied for them in the first place, don't forget that preordering from Amazon.com through our links gets you $35 back on the single-client version and $50 back on the 5-client Family Pack (while also stuffing our own coffers with filthy lucre). Best of all, Apple-- and by extension, the hardworking Apple employees who created Tiger from their own blood, sweat, and tears (no, not literally... we hope)-- will be paid for its efforts, which is, of course, only fair. And we'll be paid for, well, pretty much doing nothing, which isn't. But it's still really, really cool.

And hey, what about imminent service launches, too? If you're stateside like we are, you've had the luxury of being able to drain your bank account straight into the iTunes Music Store for almost two full years, now, so it's easy to take that privilege for granted as the bank is repossessing your car. Many of our friends overseas, however, aren't so lucky; take, for example, oh, we don't know-- let's say the Swiss, the Danes, the Swedes, the Norwegians, and the Aussies. Sure, between them they may have great banks, big dogs, excellent candy fish, fjords to end all fjords, and more marsupials than anyone can shake a stick at-- but what good is all that if they can't download cheap, legal, iPod-compatible songs by cheesy '80s hair bands whenever the mood strikes them? Seriously, it's like the Dark Ages or something.

But all is not lost! According to Music.ch (by way of the ever-entertaining BabelFish auto-translation service), iTunes Switzerland is slated for a launch in just two more days, on the 28th-- and it's "to go together with the likewise still missing nordischen Shops for Sweden, Denmark, and Norway" on the same day. The cited source is an "internal memorandum," although internal to whom the site doesn't clarify; a spokesperson for Apple Switzerland, however, when asked for comment by Music.ch, replied "'you prepare belly pain' already for us." Which is either a confirmation that the info is legit, or a request for a minty chewable antacid, or both. In any case, we don't see any reason to doubt the info. Or, at least, we don't understand any reason to doubt it, which is pretty much the same thing.

But hey, what about them Aussies? Well, rumors of imminent iTMSness have been swirling down under for ages, now, but we finally have some solid confirmation from an unimpeachable source: according to The Courier-Mail, no less an Apple authority than "actor and sometime-musician Russell Crowe" (we think he played "Mad Max" or something) has let slip on an Australian radio show that "the local iTunes Music Store would become available on April 28," and that its catalog would include "the first of his post-30 Odd Foot of Grunts songs." Per-song pricing is reportedly set at $1.80 Australian, which comes out to roughly $1.40 in what we Yanks commonly refer to as "real money." (No offense, but their fifty-cent piece is a dodecagon with a kangaroo and an emu on it. What is that?)

The good news is that there's at least some decent hard evidence that Music.ch and Mr. Crowe are both right about the April 28th launch date: Mac Rumors reports that flag buttons for the five new countries in question are all already available from Apple's servers. So Tune in Thursday, when we'll tell you whether or not any or all of these overseas iTMSeseses came to be. And tune in tomorrow, when we'll tell you just how many email messages we got from irony-deficient people informing us that it was in fact Mel Gibson who played "Mad Max" because they didn't get the joke and didn't bother reading this far before firing off a correction. Will it be more or fewer than the number of email messages we get from irate Aussies who think we seriously impugned the majestic beauty of their national coinage? We'll sell you the whole seat, but you'll only need the edge!